The Van Pact

34: Stevie

I couldn't take the bus home, because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get a ride back in time for the homecoming game's attendance. Instead, I sat in the pipe enclosure with Christy MacDonald and the rest of the bagpipers. The pipe enclosure is basically a closet in the band room. It's got soundproof windows, because no one really wants to listen to bagpipes. I'm not entirely convinced that the bagpipers even want to listen to the bagpipes, though that's not because they don't hang around there enough. In fact, they happen to be a fixture of the enclosure, like the overhead lights or the grime on the door. It's like a cult or a prison. They never seem to leave.

"She's an inspiration," Christy MacDonald dissembled her bagpipe. "She convinced me to try out for Les Mis in 8th grade."

"What role did you play?" I didn't remember Christy in any of our middle school productions, let alone the infamous Les Mis.

"I didn't make the cast," Christy cleaned out her blow stick with a damp Lion King-printed cloth, "but that was the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Yeah," I thought about the secondhand cringe I felt for Sean Connor, who fell off stage during the dance number Mr. Litner insisted he perform as Jean Valjean. Middle school musicals probably produce some of the most painful memories for every theatrical person, of any time, or part of the world. "You dodged a bullet there."

"Mr. Litner told me I wasn't 'musical' enough for even the chorus," Christy wiped down the chanter, "so, to become 'musical' enough for the next year's production, I took up the bagpipe. Now look at me!"

I looked at her. Sure, she was Christy MacDonald, the pipe major who wore Mickey ears to school sometimes. But there was also a rare, unfiltered joy in her voice as she spoke.

"I just got accepted, early decision, to Wooster College. They're offering me a bagpiper scholarship," she beamed. "I'll be part of a college pipe band."

The notion of a college pipe band made me want to gag. But Christy was close to euphoria. Good for Christy, I thought. I wished I had a hobby that could bring me some sort of euphoria. The closet thing I had to a hobby was complaining about God, or fantasying about boys: Benedict Cumberbatch, John Cusack, Sam Mullingar, Jesse Niemczyk.

Janey Mac. I wondered if I were actually insufferable.

"And I owe it all to Valerie DiPaolo," Christy said.

I heard a twinkle of piano keys drift in past the pipe enclosure's opened door. I peeked out into the band room. Jan performed a bad rendition of the Peanuts theme on the baby grand. Carla threw her baton. And Valerie danced blindly like Snoopy on a Charles Schultz holiday special. That sight- her dancing, her green military jacket, her leopard print pumps- all reinforced just how much I actually missed her. I wanted to say something, but I couldn't. All I could do was stare. As she tossed her hair and shimmied her shoulders, her eyes opened, and she caught me.

I felt compelled to dart my head back into the pipe enclosure, but I still hoped she'd come over.

"So did you two break up or something?" Christy tilted her poofy orange head.

I wrapped the loose ends of my untied shoe laces around my index fingers.

***

I know I was the one stipulating the dare, but I had never been so nervous, not at the Sheetz, not when I first dm'd Jesse, and not even when I planned to ask him to homecoming. I reread the text message I had just typed.